In general, a fuel cell system supplies hydrogen as a fuel and air as an oxidant to a fuel cell stack, and produces electricity through an electrochemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen. The fuel cell system can be mounted in a vehicle, and can drive the vehicle by operating an electric motor with electricity produced by the fuel cell stack.
The fuel cell system refers to a type of electric power generation system which electrochemically converts chemical energy directly into electrical energy in the fuel cell stack.
Because a large amount of heat is generated in the fuel cell stack during a fuel cell reaction, a cooling apparatus is necessary to be provided in the fuel cell system in order to cool the system. Meanwhile, an antifreeze fluid is used in the fuel cell vehicle as a coolant.
The coolant may be injected in a pressurized manner after causing the cooling system to be in a vacuum state so that bubbles are not present in the cooling system.
If bubbles (air) are present in the cooling system when the coolant is injected, a possibility of overheating due to a coolant deficiency is increased. In a case in which the bubbles are present in the cooling system of the fuel cell vehicle, as described above, a deterioration in an efficiency of the fuel cell and cooling performance due to a local increase in temperature of the fuel cell stack can be caused, coolant flow noise can occur, and adverse conditions may result.
Therefore, the fuel cell vehicle includes an ion filter in order to remove bubbles that are present in the cooling system.
However, a replacement time of an ion filter cartridge is determined through volume change measured by a gauge mounted in the ion filter using a volume reduction principle of an ion resin.
Therefore, in the related art, it is difficult to determine the replacement time of the ion filter cartridge after opening an engine compartment of the vehicle and checking the gauge with the naked eye.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the disclosure and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.